Yes soul exists. Just watch Soul Train to see what I’m talking about.

I'm an atheist, and the only "soul" I believe in is the musical kind.

I think it is a term that could easily mean some sort of self-awareness thing...a comfortable state of being...a person with soul to me is someone with a conscious that is aware, kind, caring, enlightened, etc.I don't think of it in terms of any religion or spiritual context, just a descriptive one that gives me a quick insight into a person's character...

We don't exist in a soul, we exist in the thoughts that are contained by our brains. My understanding of human existence is that we begin our existence with the creation of our first thought and we end our existence with the creation of our last thought. You can physically exist with a beating heart but without thought you won't exist in your mind or anywhere else. Our thoughts are contained in a chemically balanced living biological container. The slightest change in our chemical makeup can cause immense changes in our thinking and perceptions and can even change who we are as a person. Our thoughts are bound to this chemical container and cannot survive outside of it or even survive a 5% shift in chemistry balance. To think that the mechanism that creates thought in our delicate biology structure can exist intact outside of that structure, in an unnatural way, defies logic. It would be totally unnatural ( against nature) and would break the laws of physics. Religion resides in this fantasy realm of the unnatural. There is nothing natural about religion - it breaks all of the rules of physics. Physics and the unnatural can't reside in the same universe. If the unnatural were to exists it would destroy the physical universe because the laws of physics would no longer apply. A dream world and a world in reality can't coexist physically in the same environment - one would destroy the other. You can only bring a dream into reality when the dream conforms to the physics of reality.

Say your dreaming about getting a new house. The new house would reside in a dream world of yours. As soon as you obtain your new house in reality the dream of a new house is destroyed because the new house now resides in the physical world and is not a dream anymore. But you will never be able to bring the unnatural dream of souls, gods and heavens and hells into reality because it would destroy reality. Our sanity is based on reality and if your dream destroys reality it will also take your sanity with it. People freak out and go insane when their chemistry is a little off. So what do you think the religious people will do when they bring their dream of the unnatural into reality and their unnatural "souls" brains are disconnected and have no connection to reality or the physical world at all for an eternity? Live your life now - don't wait until you're dead, static and unchanging for an eternity.

The formula is simple. No god = no afterlife = no soul. Also, in the cases of soul music and soul food, they are both referring to the mythical immortal soul that religions spew on and on about. When they say many a soul has blah blah blah, they are also referring to that same mythological soul, and to be clear, anything that refers to the metaphysical essence of an individual that supposedly continues beyond that individual's death is their mythical soul, no matter what name you give it, be it spirit, Qi (chi), lifeforce, consciousness, energy, essence, ghost, psyche, specter, shade, quintessence, pneuma, élan vital, etc. After death, it's all the same BS.

I am an atheist, and I do not believe that we have a soul.

Some things don't need defining and should just be enjoyed. I love that there is magic in the universe and our souls help us appreciate those things in ways that words and numbers cannot describe.

Soul could also be what the Chinese call Chi it is a vital life force which flows freely within the body usually though to be electrical energy. Yoga has a different term for it but has similar ways of unblocking it so it flows freely in the body. if that is how you use it then no religious connotation. If you think it is something that can burn in hell or praised in heaven then yes it is religious connotation.

Pineal gland. Its what bounds to the mother and every other living thing. This is not woo wooey, it is real and vital to our survival as a species.

I've found this word to be a real "hot button" for some.

I actually remember first being taught what it means .... or rather the first definition given to me .... "The soul is the 'you' inside your body".

To this day, that definition sticks with me and it is apparently at odds with those who insist the word "soul" mean something that lives on after your body dies. I don't think the soul lives on after the body dies. I've tried talking about "soul" in the context of what I was taught only to be met with an onslaught of fire breathing atheists and agnostics who were convinced I was a religious troll.

In short, I find it easier to use the word "consciousness". It avoids confrontation with the idjits who can not be so flexible with their definitions.

I am agnostic. I believe there is some sort of energy. Now I refuse to assign it a deity but I think there's something in me that creates cellular activity that doesn't require a body. Just my opinion.

I don't think that the word 'Soul' is a religious thing. At least not 100% .. Even though the Catholic religion does not believe that an animal has a soul. I do. It is the inner core of any being and unique to the creature it inhabits. The soul is our conscience, it's the depth of our emotions. I am driven by this feeling and enjoy knowing that I have a soul .. loving and kind soul for all Life.
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I think, as the ancient Greeks did, that we do have a soul and that it dies with the body. They thought of the soul as the essence of who the person is. What makes us who we are. Does that work when one is an atheist? I think so. Our 'Soul' although seeming intangible is centered in our brains and comes from our own minds. I do not think that makes it any less remarkable, rather it increases the wonderment with which one views the magnificence of nature and the creatures it has produced.

It was nephesh in Hebrew and meant the whole person. The Greek pneuma had the idea of immortality. I think you still have the Greek soul to live on after you unless you, like the Hebrews and many non-religious, think the mind dies when the brain dies. I'm hopeful the soul does live on but I'm in a minority.

Anything associated with the Bible new or old and anything associated with the Quaran or other books of Abraham in my humble opinion is bullshit. Disregard everything in those books. They may have stumbed on a truth or two but if the premise is wrong so are the teachings. This Agnostic believes in the same thing Athiest do except I leave the door open on the unknown. I have hope that there may be a afterlife without there being a God as described by the religious. I lean towards enlightenment and although it sounds funny the Force as decribed in Star Wars, but we won't find out whats true till we discover our final fate.

I think that it has it's origins in the Greek word 'psyche' which translates as air or breath of life

I don't think there is a physical "soul" as a thing to believe in or not, but is more of a descriptive word for a component of one's personality, philosophical wisdom, aptitude for evoking feeling, and the like.

A person can be an "old soul" or be "soulful" a bit like saying someone has "heart" or "spirit" and such. While there is such a thing as a physical heart, that's not really what is meant. Love isn't stored in the heart, it's in your mind, your essence or what have you. Soul is one of those catchall words that we say because there is no physiological explanation. That's my feeling.

This is a matter of materialism vs. idealism (or spiritualism), isn't it? Soul isn't necessarily a religious term, if a religion is defined by a belief in some higher beings. The idea of soul is that it is some non-material essence of a person, that may or may not continue to exist after death. I am a materialist, and that means I don't believe in "soul" as defined. What I believe to be "soul" is the "programming" of our natural and physical self. Intelligence and self-awareness based on the complexity and the organization of the arrangements of the matter that make up our bodies.

It depends as the word has several meanings, only some of which are related to a (potential) religious meaning? It comes from the Old English "sawel" which seems to have roots to the Latin sol (sun).
Merriam-Webster defines it as (slightly paraphrased though mostly in tact, especially in essence):

1. the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
   2 : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe
   3 : a person's total self
   4 : an active or essential part
   5 : the moral and emotional nature of human beings
   b : the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment
   c : spiritual or moral force : FERVOR
   6 : PERSON
   not a soul in sight
   7 : PERSONIFICATION
   she is the soul of integrity
   8 : a strong positive feeling (as of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor) conveyed especially by African American performers

So the short of it, it depends on how you are using it, what's the context.

Soul is a complicated concept and mostly related in a misleading Christian context but the discussion begins with Plato and Aristotle.

To Plato the soul was a seperate part of the being which went to another realm at death. For Aristotle it was the animating principle of a being and disintegrated at death.

The idea that is observable is the Aristotlean view as we can see the destruction of the mind and body as an empirical fact. We cannot observe a realm for the soul so Plato, from an observable viewpoint must take a back seat.

We do not, however, know what future advances may be made in this exploration so Aristotle is the ascendant idea with Plato awaiting further research

I had a philosophy professor in college that explained the original notion of "soul" was just a living thing. For example, the NIV says, "Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being," while the King James Version says, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." So "living being" and "living soul" are equated, and a "soul" is not the thing riding inside the body, but the fact that the body itself is alive.

The professor explained that is why an S.O.S. from a sinking ship doesn't mean, "Give our souls to Jesus as we die," but save our physical lives. The "soul" in S.O.S. is simply your physical life here on earth.

(Which would indeed make sense since this idea of "soul" is in Genesis, and Judiasm doesn't really have an idea of the afterlife anyway.)

There are certainly non supernatural interpretations of the word. "Their team played with soul", "he was the life and soul of the party" are pretty unambiguous. It can also be used poetically to describe the essential essence of one's character.
That said even if the author is clearly using the word in its magical sense I don't have much of a problem reading about either fantasies or other people's perceptions of the universe.

Superman got all his instructions, crystal house BUILT and energy to reverse the rotation of the earth reversing time IN HIS DNA and a single green crystal the size of a penis.....that is the movie story of his mostly immortal somewhat omniscient "soul" transported to earth from a spacecraft originating from a planet Marlon Brando......I think our personalities are not exclusively limited to skull contents or nerve cells running from spine to fingernails and hairs in your nose.....I think we inherit some "thoughts" "awareness" "body memories" from our forebears.....dominant urges of a great grandmother or a great great grandfather.....soul is a cocktail a stew a brew from the cauldron of banana eaters tree nesters ocean voyagers desert camel riders and the pure magical love of a fertile female deeply dedicated to merging with a mate and birthing squatting upon a clean smooth stone alone or with her tribal sisters and a javelin guardian nearby.....who knows what essential gene for white cells anti-virals and good gut flora is in colostrum and lactose ?.....we are a continuum a moving train with passengers and cargo aboard and disembarking.....summarizing synthesizing symbolizing all that down to Larry of March 22nd and a headstone to be engraved later is a GRAVE mistake.....I prefer to remain empathic searching vision questing and marching to my own drummer piss on the bible lies and love my mate as soon as she chooses me

It can be and it doesn't have to. All up to you.